Five
The large white house sat back from the main driveway shrouded by giant, ancient looking trees. Only a few black shutters remained, giving the outside an eerie, haunted look.
"Well, it looks like the kind of place a bunch of creepy, pasty, man-munching freaks would call home," Dean exclaimed as they stood just inside the line of woods that surrounded most of the property.
Sam groaned and rolled his eyes, eliciting a chuckle from Reggie.
"From to the stuff I could find on this place in the town library, it's been empty for almost sixty years. According to the records, a Mr. Maxwell James, died in 1948 and left the house to his nephew. The nephew, Jonah Bloom, moved into the house in 1949, but only lived there for six months. He claimed the spirit of his uncle haunted the halls. Mr. Bloom tried to sell it without success and it eventually sat vacant.
"The county declared it condemned in 1981 and after they re-mapped the roadways, it was bypassed and forgotten. There are several local legends about the house, but I couldn't find anything to actually support any of them," Reggie said. "As far as I can tell, no one has come near this place in over twenty years."
"Except for the occasional stupid teenager," Dean muttered.
"No, not even them. Around here they take their legends seriously. If an elder tells you a place is bad and to stay away, the kids listen."
Both Dean and Sam stared at Reggie in disbelief.
"I didn't think such a place existed," Dean said with mock wonderment.
Sam and Reggie laughed and all three of them started walking towards the house. When they got to the porch, Dean motioned using the military hand signals his father had taught him for Reggie and Sam to go around to the back. They nodded and disappeared.
Dean pulled out his gun and silently climbed the porch steps. The wood was rotten and warped and creaked with every step. Dean grimaced as the top step cracked loudly under his weight. He hurried to the front door and tried the handle. The door, unlocked, creaked slowly open. He pulled out his flashlight and slipped inside.
The entryway was littered with dead leaves and dirt and, as he swept the beam of his flashlight over the aged floor, Dean saw that a thick layer of dust coated everything. The walls were cracked and in some places missing huge chucks of plaster. Dean eased into the next room, which he identified immediately as the living room.
A large, antique sofa sat against the wall, as moth eaten and rotten as the rest of the furniture in the room. He swept the room quickly and moved on. He could see the beams from Sam and Reggie's flashlights as they bounced through the kitchen doorway into the adjacent dining room and left them to clear those rooms.
Dean headed for the stairs to the second floor and took them two at a time. On the landing, he backed up until his back hit the damp wall and swept his flashlight up and down both directions of the long hallway.
The house appeared to be empty, and, after checking most of the rooms upstairs, Dean padded back down to the first floor to find Sam and Reggie. They were just coming up from the basement when Dean entered the kitchen.
"Find anything?" Dean asked, although he could already guess the answer.
"Nothing. Just a lot of dust and cobwebs." Sam brushed his free hand through his hair. "It's definitely free of ghouls as well as anything else remotely supernatural."
"Sam even pulled out the EMF meter and, basically, this place is as docile as a fluffy baby chick," Reggie said.
"Let's get out of here," Dean suggested. He turned and headed for the front door.
They were back at the Impala in twenty minutes, all three smudged with dirt and dust. Dean grabbed a handful of snow and stuck it inside one of the many stolen motel towels he had stored in the car. After the snow had melted some, he used the damp towel to wipe off his face and hands. Sam and Reggie did the same before climbing into the car. Dean cranked the heater up and peeled back out onto the road.
"Well, that was productive," Dean grumbled, turning on the windshield wipers.
"It was a likely place for the ghouls to be living," Reggie stated as she leaned forward from the backseat. "At least now we can cross it off the list."
"So where to now?" Dean asked.
"Well, I gotta get back to my room and clean up," Reggie said.
"What for? We should continue looking for these suckers while there's still some good daylight."
"Because, Dean. I'm supposed to meet Adrianne for lunch, remember?"
Dean glanced back at Reggie, perplexed.
"You were serious about that?"
"Yes, I was serious. Why is that such a surprise?"
"I guess I just never pictured you as the girlfriend type, that's all," Dean replied, using air quotes around the word girlfriend. Reggie sat back against the seat and folded her arms over her chest. Dean watched her in the rearview mirror, trying to read the expression on her face. "What'd I say?" He looked to Sam for help.
"Just get me back to the motel, please," Reggie snapped as Sam opened his mouth to answer.
Sam glanced back at Reggie and then at Dean, deciding that he was safer staying out of it.
Dean sped down the road and whipped the Impala into the motel parking area, skidding to a stop next to Reggie's Plymouth. She was out of the car before Dean had even turned off the engine. He and Sam climbed out of the car and made their way to their room, Dean mumbling to himself. Once inside, Sam picked up the room phone and dialed Bobby's number. Dean flopped down on his bed, staring up at the ceiling as he listened to Sam talk to the older man.
About twenty minutes later, they heard the Plymouth's engine roar to life and the sound of tires kicking up mud as Reggie sped out of the lot. Dean grunted and sat up, looking at Sam, who was flipping through their dad's journal again.
"Didn't you already look through that?"
"Yeah, but I figured a second glance can't hurt. Bobby said he's still looking, but so far, he's only managed to come up with the same stuff we already know. That ghouls are cunning, fast, strong, and eat human flesh. That they can hide in plain sight because of their ability to shield their true form until feeding time. Which is all the stuff Reggie's already told us." Sam sighed and closed the journal. "These things are some of the best hunters out there, Dean. They might even be worse than wendigos. You remember what happened that time in Blackwater Ridge."
Dean nodded, then smiled. "Yeah, but you were still getting back into the swing of things. You're not the same kid I took into the woods with me, Sammy."
"And yet you still insist on calling me "Sammy"."
"What can I say? It just rolls off the tongue," Dean quipped. Sam threw a pen at his brother, hitting him on the side of the head. "Ow!" Dean rubbed at the spot where the pen had struck. "So what do you want to do now?"
"I was thinking about checking out the library again," Sam replied. "See if maybe I can find another place that would be suitable for the ghouls to be using."
Dean groaned loudly and Sam laughed.
"I can go on my own, you know."
Dean grinned stupidly and grabbed the remote. "Good. I'll see you when you get back."
He settled onto his bed, a pillow under his chin, and flipped on the TV.
Sam walked out of the library and strolled down the sidewalk, rock salt crunching under his feet as he made his way back to where he'd parked the Impala. The air had turned colder and his breath rose in puffs in front of him. He zipped his jacket closed and stuffed his hands into his pockets, quickening his pace.
Sam had just gotten to the Impala and was reaching for the handle when he spotted Reggie and Adrianne coming out of a small café. He paused, watching them as they stood talking beside Adrianne's Audi. Reggie smiled at the woman, who looked as stunning dressed in a light gray pants suit as she did in the dress the night before, Sam noted, before Adrianne gave Reggie a wave and climbed into her car. She sped off down the street, heading towards a part of town populated by several imposing stone buildings.
"Sam?" Reggie called, spotting him standing on the sidewalk with his hand still on the handle of the Impala's door. He smiled at her and waved. She jogged across the road towards him, but didn't smile back. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to check out the library to do some more research. I was trying to find another possible place the ghouls could be living," he answered defensively. Reggie stared at him, reading his face, which Sam was sure looked guilty regardless of the fact that he had nothing to feel guilty about. Reggie seemed to read this in his eyes and relaxed a little.
"Where's Dean?"
"He stayed back at the motel. Libraries and research aren't really his thing."
Reggie chuckled and nodded. "Why does that not surprise me. Are you headed back?"
"Yeah, I was."
Reggie glanced back at the little café, looking distracted. "Okay. Well then, I guess I'll see you later."
Sam smiled at her and climbed into the Impala. He watched in one of the side mirrors as Reggie jogged back across the intersection and disappeared around the corner, out of sight. A few seconds later, her Plymouth pulled up at the Stop sign and turned down a small side street.
Curious, Sam pulled the Impala out onto the road, did a complete one-eighty, and followed after her. It was hard keeping up with Reggie; she drove as erratically as Dean. Sam thought he lost her once when he came around the side of a municipal building and found himself at a dead end. Just off to the right, he saw a small alleyway, and after determining that the Impala would fit down it without being damaged, Sam drove through it slowly, coming out just as the tail end of the Plymouth disappeared down another side street.
"Where are you going?" he mumbled to himself.
When Sam finally caught up with Reggie, her car was parked at the end of a small hidden driveway, empty. He drove past, parked out of sight a block away, and got out. Sam was just walking down the broken sidewalk in front of a weathered looking rancher, when Reggie stepped out in front of him, anger flooding her pale complexion a deep pink.
"What the hell, Sam?" She took a threatening step forward and Sam backed up instinctively. "You can't really follow someone in an Impala, you know. It's not that inconspicuous!" she snapped.
"That's what people keep saying," Sam joked, trying to relax the situation.
Reggie glared at him.
"Why are you following me?"
"Come on Reggie. You tell Dean that there are things you don't want to tell us about this job and expect us to let it go? You were driving all over town…"
"Because I knew you were following me from the second you pulled the Impala around."
"Oh." Sam was stunned silent. Dean was going to love hearing about how his little brother couldn't even tail somebody without being made.
"Look, Sam. I appreciate that you and Dean want to help on this job, but it's my hunt, and I plan on doing it as much on my own as I can. I know that makes me sound a little childish, but there are just some things you don't know."
"Because you won't tell us," Sam snapped.
"That's only to protect you and Dean."
"We don't need to be protected!" Sam cried out in frustration. "We've been doing this job a lot longer than you have and we've seen and done a lot of stuff you can't even begin to imagine. We've got far more experience in handling this kind of stuff."
Sam was angry now. He couldn't understand how Reggie continued to hold on to the notion that he and Dean needed anyone's protection?
"Don't give me that experience crap, Sam! This isn't my first hunt!"
Reggie took a deep breath and relaxed her hands, which had been balled into fists at her sides.
"Just let me figure something out, without the two of you breathing down my necks, and I promise you that, as soon as I have my answers, I'll tell you everything, okay?"
Sam nodded and relaxed his shoulders.
"Fine, I can live with that."
He gave her a weak half-smile and then laughed as a thought occurred to him.
"Dean, on the other hand, might be a little more difficult."
Reggie sat on the end of her bed, holding Frank's journal in her hands, running her fingers over the messy handwriting. There was a knock on her door and she sighed, snapping he journal closed as she wiped a tear off her cheek. She could already guess who was standing outside.
"What do you want, Dean?" she called.
"I want to talk to you," Dean replied through the door.
Reggie got up and walked to the door, sliding the lock back before opening it. Dean stood in front of her, dressed in an open, dark blue, button-up shirt over a black t-shirt and a pair of worn blue jeans. He gave her a smile, which lit up his green eyes and caused Reggie's stomach to jump uncomfortably. He started to take a step into her room, when she held up her hand, stopping him.
"Just say what you need to say."
Dean blinked at her in surprise then shrugged. "I'm not here to lecture or bargain or give you orders, if that's what you think."
"Oh really?" Reggie asked, raising an eyebrow at him in disbelief.
"Really. I just wanted to ask you if you were planning on going back to that bar we were at last night?" He paused, trying to appear nonchalant about the conversation, making it obvious that that was not why he'd originally knocked on Reggie's door. "'Cause Sam and I are going to head over there in an hour. I just figured we could take one car if you're gonna go too."
Reggie gaped at him for a moment, before regaining her composure and shaking her head.
"I am going to head over there, but I think it's best if we go in separate cars. You know, to keep up the appearance that we don't actually know each other."
Dean nodded nonchalantly. "Right, I didn't think about that."
"I'll just "run into you" again when I get there." Reggie started to close the door when Dean's hand shot out and stopped her, holding the door open.
"Is everything okay? You just seem a little…I don't know, distracted."
"Everything's fine." Reggie gave him a small smile. "I'll see you later on."
Dean let the door close and she slumped against it, her heart thudding in her chest. Reggie ran her hands through hair, yanking it onto the top of her head and securing it there with a rubber hair-tie. She ran her finger lightly over the three-inch pink scar on the inside of her left arm, tracing the spot where the demon had cut her, severing the artery. Reggie had lost a lot of blood and had almost died that night, yet that wasn't what it reminded her about.
Even now, she could see the scene that had played out before the demon attack; her and Dean in one of the bedrooms of the empty apartment building they had been squatting in. There had been some serious passion between them, but she had stopped it before it had gone too far. She had never told Dean why, although she had attempted to before they said goodbye a few days later. Feelings were a weakness in this business, a distraction neither of them could afford, and she had held her tongue instead. She had watched them drive off, knowing that it was better to just let it all go.
Reggie had stuck around at Bobby Singer's, pouring herself into finding a job once she was healed enough to leave. Bobby had tried to get her to stay longer, to hang out at his home, helping him do research for the occasional hunter who called when they needed Bobby's expertise. But once the wounds had closed and she had almost full use of her left arm again, Reggie had packed her things and hit the road.
She had spent a few days at her house in Lisbon, Maryland, packing things and putting them in storage; closing up the leftover shell of her home. Once that was finished, she called Bobby, told him about the folder she'd left behind, hidden under one of the many piles of books in his cluttered house, before heading to Bridgewater.
Reggie had immersed herself in the job, trying to block out all the memories and moments that kept creeping back up on her. Reggie had thought it would've been a long while before she would see Dean Winchester again, much longer than this. Part of her had considered the possibility that she might never see him again.
Yet here he was, as cocky, self-assured, and frustratingly handsome as he was on the first day she'd met him. Reggie shook her head and tugged off her t-shirt, heading into the bathroom to get a shower.
Once she was finished, she got dressed quickly, pulling on a snug pair of blue jeans and a long sleeved, black shirt. She tugged on her boots, secured a long silver blade into a strap just below her knee and yanked her pant leg back down to cover it. Reggie looked over the room before grabbing her leather jacket and a gun as she left her motel room.
The sun had set a few hours before and the night had become frigid. She pulled on her jacket and zipped it closed, fishing out her car keys from one of the many pockets. Reggie peeled out of the motel parking lot onto the highway and pressed the gas pedal to the floor, letting the Plymouth's engine growl loudly as the speedometer needle climbed higher.